Net Knots
by The Cat's Whiskers
Summary: The boys...go corporate!
1. Chapter 1

_**Disclaimer…All together now:** _The TV show _Supernatural_ and all characters therein are owned by assorted Americans, not me (though I'd like an option on the delectable JDM) – and after all, these people killed off the Metallicar, so do they _deserve_ ownership? Maybe I could sue for custody… g Anyway: this fiction is purely for the enjoyment of readers; no money is being made. All Original Characters remain the property of Catherine D. Stewart and may not be used without the express permission of the authoress.

**_Summary: _**The boys…go corporate!

_**Rating:** _'T'/15. In her great, and very funny, story _**Moments**, _Redbanker has Sam comment about he'd prefer them having a different source of income…so this is my idea of how Sam's keen brain came up with a way to turn them legit. This story must officially be classed as 'AU' as it is set in the Second Season and though I am hopeful/confident all three will come through the Demolition Derby (four if you count the seriously injured but not dead Metallicar) this is of course up to Eric Kripke, McG, etc...

**NB** – Brothers in Arms is the title of the Dire Straits song on the Album of the same name, and indeed is extremely apropos for the brothers Winchester.

**NET KNOTS **

**Chapter 1**

"A WEBSITE! YOU MADE A WEBSITE!"

_Continued in Chapter 2…_

© 2006, Catherine D. Stewart

I would like to thank everyone for their patience in waiting for me to post since my granddad passed away. I am still working on _I Thought I Saw _and several, hopefully, less-angsty stories, but my health is not good and at the moment England is suffering under a terrible heatwave – it is intolerable to even turn a computer on! But I hope to start posting again regularly soon.


	2. Chapter 2

**_Disclaimer etc, _**see Chapter 1

**NET KNOTS **

**Chapter 2**

With a heroic effort of willpower, Sam kept his face sober even in the face of Dean's cry heading comically towards what could only be termed (no offence, ladies) the 'girlish shriek' decibel level, though fortunately this was one of the good motels with decently substantial dividing walls. Right now so much as a faint lip-twitch would probably push Dean over the edge in fratricide. Sure, Dean would be genuinely sorry _after_ he'd throttled his baby brother to death, but that wouldn't be much good to Sam by then.

Dean actually almost panted as he fought the urge to wrap his hands around his idiotic brother's neck and _squeeze_…he could do it…and once he'd explained, there wasn't a court in any land that wouldn't agree: justifiable homicide…but this was Sammy, so he roared, "are you _tripping_!"

"Dean," Sam said in a voice of calm reasonableness, taking the calculated risk of sitting down on one of the two chairs that belonged to the twin room's small, circular table in the (almost) certain knowledge that Dean wouldn't simply leap at him and start pummelling him.

"Don't _Dean_ me!" the older brother sucked in a breath and consciously got a grip as he heard his own outrage echo in the confines of the room and realised that his voice was less 'angry lion's roar' and more 'aged spinster aunt on a chair after spotting a mouse' in its pitch. "What were you _thinking?_"

"That the Demon can destroy us whenever it wants!"

_Continued in Chapter 3…_

© 2006, Catherine D. Stewart


	3. Chapter 3

**_Disclaimer etc, _**see Chapter 1

**NET KNOTS **

**Chapter 3**

Taking advantage of the charged silence that declamation instantly caused, Sam sucked in a breath of his own and looked in his brother's eyes, usually light, sardonic hazel, but now the wild onyx-streaked emerald green of a storm-lashed sea. "Dean, this last year, of everything we did, of everything that happened…which of all the supernatural shit we faced was the most dangerous?"

"I didn't give them points for lethality of style!" Dean shot back but then scowled, "You _know_, Sam…The Demon…Our Demon…"

"No it wasn't."

"Oh, please, in that case enlighten me."

"It was the plane demon."

Dean stared at his brother's perfectly serious face. He knew Sam better than anyone, including Sam himself. He had been mother, father and brother to the kid since he was four years old. But still there seemed to be so many occasions when his younger brother was completely unfathomable. Like right now.

"The. Plane. Demon." He enunciated the words with all the derision he could muster, and Dean Winchester could muster a great deal of sarcasm when he wanted to.

"Yes."

"And you base this on…?"

"It had an original thought."

_Continued in Chapter 4…_

© 2006, Catherine D. Stewart


	4. Chapter 4

**_Disclaimer etc, _**see Chapter 1

**NET KNOTS **

**Chapter 4**

Dean digested this reply for several seconds, then a few seconds more. He was aware of a burgeoning stress headache tightening across his forehead. Dean knew he was probably one of the few people in the world who saw more reality than absurdity in Lewis Carroll's _Alice in Wonderland_; there were many occasions in his life, and right now was definitely one, when it would not have surprised Dean in the slightest to have a giant white rabbit suddenly bound across the scene bearing a giant pocket watch, wearing a constipated expression of anxiety and declaring agitatedly, "I'm late! I'm late, for a very important date!"

"Of course," this time the sarcasm in his voice would have sliced diamonds in half.

Sam sighed again, "I'm serious, Dean."

"And I'm seriously struggling not to beat you to a bloody pulp with the nearest heavy object." Dean ground out. "So cut the cryptic and talk me out of it, fast."

"Fine," Sam snapped. "It goes like this. The Chinese invented the printing press two millennia ago. Western civilisation had to wait 15 hundred years until William Caxton came up with the idea. Irish, Welsh and Scandinavian seafarers founded colonies in America 15 hundred years before Chris Columbus got the notion. Leonardo da Vinci invented heavier than air flying machines five centuries before the Wright Brothers. An Englishman named Lord Henry Cavendish was one of the most brilliant scientists of his day, but suffered extreme agoraphobia. When he died forty years later it was found that he had independently discovered or anticipated dozens of scientific advances others got the credit for…With me so far?"

"I'm about to go and get the tyre iron from the Impala, Sam." Dean warned in that quiet, careful voice that warned he really, really was not fooling around. "If you have any point to make, I suggest –"

"That is my point, Dean." Sam leaned forward earnestly. "Don't you see? Sometimes it took years, sometimes centuries, sometimes millennia, but eventually, _someone always followed those that went before._"

The words seemed to hang in the air in front of Dean's face. His ire lessened a tiny notch as deep in his brain he began to see a faint glimmer.

Sam let the pause hang, allowing the words to rearrange themselves in his brother's cerebellum. Dean was smarter than anyone Sam knew – his IQ probably even outstripped Sam's own. Dean had never gone to college or taken his SATs and GED, not through inability, but lack of time and interest. Sam's intelligence was an academic intelligence, one that absorbed the printed page, but Dean's was a practical intelligence – not dumber, just different. Sam knew Dean – give him _Philosophy's 100 Essential Thinkers_ and his eyes would glaze over. Give him twenty minutes to come up with a practical way of preventing the asteroid obliterating all life on Earth and he'd do it in ten. Sam was good with abstract concepts; Dean was good at turning those structures of light and fancy in solidly tangible and cool stuff that seriously kicked ass.

He paused long enough to let Dean's prodigious intellect sink its teeth deep into the idea he had just tossed to it like a juicy steak, and went on, "The plane demon was the most dangerous thing we've ever faced because _it used its initiative_. A demon wants death and destruction for its own sake, but that particular demon managed to think outside the box. You said it yourself, Dean –"

"_A demon that's moved with the times and found a way to ratchet up the body count,_" Dean reiterated his own words softly.

"Yeah, and where one has gone, others will eventually follow." Sam emphasised. "It might take years, it might take centuries, but eventually another supernatural son of a bitch will do what that one did and have another Original Thought."

_Continued in Chapter 5…_

© 2006, Catherine D. Stewart


	5. Chapter 5

**_Disclaimer etc, _**see Chapter 1

**NET KNOTS **

**Chapter 5**

"Okay…" Dean conceded then scowled, "Sorry, still not getting any epiphany…or any younger," he added as he still wasn't fully on board yet.

"It's simple, Dean," Sam said earnestly, "the demon can stop us anytime it likes. It can put us down and take us out not only without breaking a sweat but without even having to do anything supernatural."

"Do tell?" Dean folded his arms, his eyebrows hugging his hairline as he oozed disbelief.

Sam could also do nonchalant. He shrugged, got up and went over the to the small coffee maker that came with the room, where he made himself a cup, not averse to making Dean stew – just a little brotherly punishment for the sarcasm; it was, after all, how their relationship worked.

"All the demon has to do is pick up a phone and make one call." Sam blew on the coffee and took another sip.

"A phone call." Dean repeated. "Who to? Ghostbuster Busters?"

"Yep. No possessing people like its children did Meg and…her 'brother'…no fire, no daevas or what-have-you." Sam sat down across from Dean again and looked his brother square in the face. "All the demon has to do is make an anonymous tip-off call to the IRS fraud information line and utter those three little words…" Sam held up his thumb and first two fingers as he counted them off, "No Visible Means."

And Dean had the epiphany.

_Continued in Chapter 6…_

© 2006, Catherine D. Stewart


	6. Chapter 6

**_Disclaimer etc, _**see Chapter 1

**NET KNOTS **

**Chapter 6**

"Huh."

It was all Dean said, but it was all Sam needed. The elder man's expression was thoughtful not angry. He was nearly three-quarters of the way to acceptance, so Sam laid it out.

"If you want to know, I had the epiphany in the hospital…just after Dad did his patented 'you're both still breathing so everything's okay so long' disappearing act." Sam didn't even bother to keep the irritation out of his voice, but kept it as low as possible; in the hospital he'd had time to come to a lot of realisations, some of which had fallen well into the 'home truth' category.

"I was so out of it…" the admission slipped out before Dean could stop it; he'd already been seriously injured before the possessed trucker did a number on the Impala.

As always the anger surged and Dean mentally swapped the 'tr' for an irate 'f' – he was convinced the demon had targeted them in the Impala specifically because after Sam, it was the second most important thing in Dean's life. Yes, even before John. After all, it was only thing Dean loved that had never abandoned him, or metaphorically ripped his heart out, tossed it in the dust and jumped up and down on it, but somehow Dean had never succeeded in pushing Sammy to second place after the Impala – Sam had held Dean's heart in one hand and his soul in the other for far too long for anything else to usurp his supremacy.

Sam shivered; Dean had called him selfish and vengeance obsessed like John. In the car, driving to the hospital, just before the truck hit them, with John berating Sam for _not_ murdering his father as 'acceptable collateral damage' to get rid of the demon, Sam had looked in the rear-view mirror straight into his critically injured brother's tortured eyes and realised that Dean had actually been understating the case. He had spent his teenage years straining away from John, and in that moment he realised that he had allowed Jessica's murder to turn him into his father; as always it was Dean, loyal, steadfast, selfless, who had paid the price of Sam turning into a selfish, self-pitying, self-obsessed, 'I'll love you only on my terms and as long as you toe my line' asshole. How warped were you when you considered, even for just a second, actually killing your father?

With an effort, Sam pushed the thoughts away for later brooding. "Yeah, well right from the moment we got to the hospital, my blood pressure was pushed into orbit even before Dad skipped on us. You were – unconscious…" even now he couldn't say out loud the reality of 'coma'. "Dad was nearly catatonic –"

"You just being the walking wounded saved our asses," Dean agreed.

"Only just!" Sam snorted. "While you and dad were in the ER, I was clearing out the Impala's glove box and trunk before the cops got there – I ended up putting them behind a dumpster. Then I had to verbally tap-dance to make sure they didn't wonder why Dean Winchester was in their hospital instead of being dead in St Louis. If they hadn't bought that all our injuries were caused by the car accident…" he shook his head in frustration.

"You did good, Sam." Dean tried to encourage.

"No, I just got lucky," Sam corrected, "and luck has a nasty habit of flipping you the bird and driving off laughing in a screech of tires just when you need her most. I was sat there trying to fill in the forms and keep our stories straight when I realised that we were sitting ducks."

_Continued in Chapter 7…_

© 2006, Catherine D. Stewart


	7. Chapter 7

**_Disclaimer etc, _**see Chapter 1

**NET KNOTS **

**Chapter 7**

"Sammy, I get it…but a website is –"

"The only way we can go legit and still do what we do," Sam interrupted firmly. "I didn't just sit in the hospital and decide to go dot com. I spent most of my time freaking out inside my head when I realised that the demon could take us out of the game with that phone call to the IRS – if it if ever thought of it."

"Yeah, yeah, you already said – No Visible Means."

"Exactly – my brain is good at nightmares Dean, excellent at visualising all sorts of calamities…Comes with the Technicolor Shining." Sam growled. "My imagination had a field day with that scenario – the Men in Grey turning up on our doorstep one day and starting with the inquisition: You have no jobs, Messrs Winchester, so how do you acquire the money to put gas in that guzzling tank? How do you pay for the food you eat, the clothes you wear, the cubic tonnage of lead, silver and iron bullets you go through annually?"

Dean winced at the recitation of questions, acknowledging their validity. "I suppose pool hustling, illegal poker games, credit card fraud and rich women's gigolo wouldn't go down too well."

"We'd be toast." Sam stated harshly. "I've never been comfortable with the credit card scams but they're like snags all over the sweater that is our life – pull one and the whole lot comes unravelled. The IRS catches us out with _one_ credit card fraud and they won't stop digging." He looked at Dean squarely, "The three of us would end up doing twenty-five without parole for fraud, embezzlement, identity theft and whatever else they could throw at us – and that's assuming that they didn't just have us all shipped to the nearest asylum for the criminally insane when we tried to _explain_."

_Continued in Chapter 8…_

© 2006, Catherine D. Stewart


	8. Chapter 8

**_Disclaimer etc, _**see Chapter 1

**NET KNOTS **

**Chapter 8**

Dean sighed heavily, wishing he could present a counterargument and knowing it was futile. That was the thing about Sammy's kind of smart – it was logical and rational and meditative and often played Devil's Advocate with itself to cover all the bases and examine every possible angle before coming up with a polished, final – and irrefutable – conclusion.

"…and since the Winchester luck is usually all bad," Sam was continuing, "…the loony bin they dump us in would probably have a Dr Ellicott Mark II at the helm."

Dean flinched, both at those memories and the aftermath, when he'd been forced to endure a chick-flick _eternity_ thanks to the pester-power of his guilt-ridden younger brother – though it _had_ helped repair their relationship (something Dean would never admit to out loud).

The rock-salt assault on his chest still hurting a lot, he had been prepared to endure and appear to accept earnest apologies; but Dean had been taken by surprise when Sam had asked him if he remembered, how, when he was ten, Dean had punched a hole in a motel room wall in a fit of anger because John – absent on yet another hunt as usual – had spent the last of the grocery money on shells for his 12-gauge before taking off instead of buying at least a box of cereal and some milk so Dean could see Sammy through?

Confused Dean had answered in the positive, though it wasn't the first or the last time that food money had gone on ammunition, gas for John's truck, First Aid supplies or, most reprehensibly of all, bottles of tequila, usually when it would have been Mary and John's wedding anniversary. Sam had pointed out that Dean wasn't mad at the wall, the wall had done nothing; it just happened to be the closest available target at the moment Dean's fury had erupted.

And ditto, Dean – looking down at his hands, Sam had quietly admitted that most of the words, and most of the rage, had been his; Ellicott had just brought it to the surface. Sam's anger at their father had gone back years for a myriad of minor and major reasons, and yes he was angry at Dean too, but he didn't hate Dean; Dean had been the motel wall, merely in the wrong place at the wrong time because the real target of Sam's anger was out of reach…_I knew the shotgun was only loaded with rock salt, Dean, I managed to keep that little fact from Ellicott until the last second, and besides, I know you; when it comes to Hunting there's nobody smarter…I knew there was no way you would just **give** me a loaded gun when I was **possessed** for crying out loud._

Dean snapped out of the brief reverie, which had lasted only a few seconds as Sam's expression of anxiety clearly got ready to move up a level. Not wanting to end up going off at a tangent and revisiting the whole Roosevelt Asylum situation, which Sammy would if Dean gave him half a chance, Dean had another very important objection he could throw in.

"And what about when Dad finds out?"

_Continued in Chapter 9…_

© 2006, Catherine D. Stewart


	9. Chapter 9

**_Disclaimer etc, _**see Chapter 1

**NET KNOTS **

**Chapter 9**

"He already knows about it." Sam replied soberly.

"And he was okay with it?" Dean enquired drolly.

"Hardly," Sam conceded, "but once I'd laid it on the line about the Men in Grey and unravelling sweaters he got the point. Especially when I asked him how effective did he think we'd be hunting down badass evil with mobility scooters and Zimmer frames?"

"Huh?"

"Twenty-five to life, Dean," Sam repeated. "If we got sent to San Quentin tomorrow, dad would be 75 when we got out, you'd be 52 and I'd be a sprightly 48-year-old. Not exactly the sort of Young Turks to cope with being regularly hurled into walls by desperate Shtrigas, or battered with household appliances by angry poltergeists."

"Nnh," Dean made the soft sound as he blew out a surprised breath, having never considered such ramifications, admitting, "Dad is a logical guy when he's not fixating on _the_ obsession."

Sam nodded agreement. He had in fact said a great deal more to John Winchester that Dean would never know about when he was telling – not asking – their father about the website he was setting up. Way back at Stanford, another life ago, he had had an Ethics class based around a long ago court case in Africa, where a small plane had crashed on the central African plains and the injured crew had been killed by Pygmy Bushmen. Easily captured, the tiny warriors had freely admitted their guilt in court but, perhaps made uncomfortable by their resemblance to children, the Judge had shown leniency by commuting their execution by lethal injection to life imprisonment.

Or so he had probably thought. Within a year, all the Pygmies had been dead. Not through illness or injury, murder or even suicide. Not for any identifiable reason. Their tiny bodies had simply stopped. The reason had been simple. They were a nomadic people of the great plains and open sky, they were of wild things; perpetual confinement in a six foot by nine foot concrete box had for them been the equivalent of literal torture and beatings. The Ethics professor's debate had been about how, because the trial judge had no understanding of their cultural norms or social mores, his fondly imagined 'clemency' had in fact been an act of cruelty far greater than the, on the surface, harsher penalty of execution.

Sam had pointed out to his father that Dean was the same; imprisoned with Sam and John, or even more horrifically likely, far from Sam and John, Dean would be dead within a year, because he would just 'stop'. Sam knew his brother, and Dean was from wild things. He was an eagle, or a tiger. Put such in confinement, whether it be a literal prison of concrete and iron bars or a metaphorical gilded cage encrusted with glittering 'jewel-like' trappings, and it would just destroy everything that they were.

In hindsight Sam had realised that Dean's statement in Oasis Plains about blowing his brains out if faced with normality of 'white picket fence' and manicured lawns hadn't been condescending scorn or macho bravado, but a straightforward, self-understanding acknowledgement of fact. He wasn't unwilling but actually incapable of that sort of life, and unlike most people who didn't know their own mind about anything Dean had always been one of the most self-aware people Sam had ever met.

By that time he'd had John Winchester on board, if not happily, but to hammer the point home, he'd reminded their father of the hint the demon had taunted them with when it was possessing John himself, that it had _plans_ for all the psychically gifted children like Sam. Then Sam had pointed out that by getting them put in prison, and furthermore by getting Sam separated from John and Dean, the demon would be assured of keeping one of its prize victims securely yet totally defencelessly in one place until it was ready, like a man keeping a jewel locked in a safe until he wanted it.

_Continued in Chapter 10…_

© 2006, Catherine D. Stewart


	10. Chapter 10

**_Disclaimer etc, _**see Chapter 1

**NET KNOTS **

**Chapter 10**

"I want to see it," Dean decided.

"Now?" Sam protested, aware midnight had visited and gone home in a huff over being ignored some time ago.

"Nah, I'd like to book an appointment with you for Tuesday week," Dean's sarcasm liked to keep in trim. "Yes now!"

Rolling his eyes, Sam got up and plugged the laptop's broadband cable jack back into the wall, thankful that even the more rundown motels were mostly aware that they needed to link into the information superhighway or perish. Some of them would have been better off perishing. If the website ever enabled them to save some little cash, Sam intended to hoard a bit of ammo/gas money and upgrade to a completely wireless hub laptop. This one had a wireless broadband connection but it was very basic and often 'cut off' at inopportune moments and when used on battery power it lasted only an hour before metaphorically shrivelling the ground like the Wicked Witch of the East after Dorothy had thrown that bucket of water over her.

Fortifying himself with more coffee – he would be ricocheting off the walls at this rate – Dean waited impatiently for Sammy to fire up his electronic oracle, roughly shoving aside Sam's military-style kit bag, and noticing the thick sheaf of papers, more than one of which…had _his_ own name on prominently on them?

"Here," Sam stood up and nodded towards the paperwork, "Oh yeah, and you need to fill those in too."

"For the website?" Dean hefted impressive poundage of sliced and diced trees.

"That's phase one-and-a-bit." Sam acknowledged. "After I'd done freaking out when I realised we were sitting ducks for the IRS I started freaking out again when I realised that as long as we were in the hospital we were a hair's breadth away from somebody going, "'Hey, that guy's been a corpse in St. Louis for the past half-year.'""

"You deleted my homicide file?" Dean beamed at the first bit of good news he'd heard since they started this conversation.

"No way," Sam shook his head. "Trying to delete all trace of a murderer in post 9/11 America? Not likely. But those files are designed to be updated with new information and I so I hacked in and added some narrative."

"'Some narrative'," Dean reiterated, ignoring the computer screen for the moment. "_What_ narrative, exactly?"

Sam smiled in what was probably supposed to be reassurance. "The shape-shifter's MO was to break in and steal the clothing of its next intended fall guy a few days before – remember, it broke into the Warrens and stole some of Zach's clothes a week before it murdered his girlfriend. So, I just hacked into the police files and amended it to read that the _unknown_ perpetrator spotted Dean Thomas Winchester on a camping holiday with his family and noted the superficial resemblance, before stealing Dean Winchester's clothing and his ID."

"Not bad," Dean conceded.

"Of course not," Sam smirked. "I added an addendum that Dean Winchester had no idea what was going on until he arrived to report the theft of his driver's licence and clothing and encountered confused police officers who had buried him in St. Louis. Dean Winchester left without a stain on his character and the police file now records the perpetrator as John Doe." Sam explained, "Of course, there's no paper trail to back up the computer narrative but between admin employee turnover of staff and the level of conscientious filing you'd expect from a bored, underpaid clerk, that won't surprise anyone or prod them to go looking."

"So what're all these…gun permits?" Dean scowled.

_Continued in Chapter 11…_

© 2006, Catherine D. Stewart


	11. Chapter 11

**_Disclaimer etc, _**see Chapter 1

**NET KNOTS **

**Chapter 11**

"I was on a roll," Sam admitted, with a _soupçon_ of adolescent enthusiasm in his tone for the first time tonight. "I was just basking in the smugness when I suddenly realised I'd only done _half_ a job. Hospitals and clinics don't exist in isolation; they talk to each other or rather the computers in their tissue testing labs do –"

Dean's intellect was lazy, but when curious or having a vested interest, didn't need any signposts, "So some overworked junior doc, or intern or even lab tech on the home stretch of a straight 30-hour-shift hits the wrong key and gets back the accidental but interesting information that the tissue and blood sample AB12345 Dean Smith bear-attack victim in Hicksville, Minnesota is the same guy as CD67890 Dean Berkowitz electrocution case in Nowheresville, Nebraska is the same as Dean Finkelstein the fractured ribs case in Loserville, Illinois. At which point he tells his boss who tells the hospital administrator who's curious enough and worried enough to ring the local PD who hotfoot it to my bedside in the belief that someone with that serious an identity crisis is probably someone they should be trying to put in jail."

"Exactly," Sam acknowledged, "and that same computer technology is getting faster, better and more affordable for rural cash-strapped law enforcement agencies all the time. When the Benders had me imprisoned in Hibbing - which let's face it was even less than a one-horse blip in the middle of nowhere - Deputy Sheriff Hudak _still_ had an in-car computer link to the 'world wide web' that blew _your_ phoney ID out of the water in about ten seconds flat. It's not like it was even just five years ago when you were still likely to have a day's grace before a rural sheriff's office knew your FBI badge was about as real as my 'bikini inspector' card. We've always been most vulnerable every time we get into the Impala, but nowadays…"

Dean grinned briefly at that fond memory of his brother's ire, but nodded his agreement, "Yeah, I get it. Every time I drive, we're on the edge of disaster. All it needs is some pissed traffic cop or state trooper to decide everyone is going to share his bad day pulling me over for driving whilst being cool and insisting on checking the trunk or the glove box. One look at our ordnance or my Homeland Security ID and he'll be having visions of his acceptance of a medal from the President for single-handedly capturing two al-Qaeda sleepers and we'll be on a CIA all-expenses-paid one-way trip to Guantanamo Bay – by _plane_." He shuddered.

"That's what I thought, so I wrote a letter to Wellbury, Illinois, asking them for the forms to retrospectively register the guns you bought there." Sam explained.

"I've never been to Wellbury, Illinois." Dean pointed out.

"I know. But six months ago their county courthouse basement was flooded out – broken sewerage pipe."

"Nasty."

"Very. So I wrote to them as an upright, dutiful citizen of the U.S. of A., explaining I'd purchased some firearms and permits to carry concealed and did I need to re-supply details in view of their recent unpleasantness…"

"And of course they had no surviving records of the purchases or permits." Dean chuckled. "Nice one, little bro'. You rock when you've got your Geek on."

"Ha-ha," Sam glared at the backhanded compliment. "Two of the hunting rifles and the 9mm Berretta are now registered with all propriety and legality to Dean T. Winchester."

Dean looked at the paperwork with renewed interest. "Dayton, Texas?"

"Electrical wiring fire."

"Henderson, Arizona?"

"Vermin infestation."

"Gainesville, Arkansas?"

"Tornado."

"Bettison, Kentucky?"

"Woman scorned."

"Ok- whoa?" Dean blinked.

_Continued in Chapter 12…_

© 2006, Catherine D. Stewart


	12. Chapter 12

**_Disclaimer etc, _**see Chapter 1

**NET KNOTS **

**Chapter 12**

"I thought you'd appreciate that one," Sam grinned. "The lady was an administrator at the County Courthouse and got suspicious when her fiancé, a.k.a. the County Treasurer, bought her an expensive engagement ring with cash and wouldn't pin down to a wedding date. She found out about his oblivious wife and three kids and realised the engagement ring was just a ploy to keep her legs open until he moved on to a younger model."

Dean shook his head; for all his licentious ways he was never anything but open and upfront in his dealings with women and practised what was probably a close thing to serial monogamy. He had never been unfaithful to a woman he was 'with' and would never have had even a fleeting thought of deceiving her into continuing what she believed to be a genuine relationship just so he could continue to get sex by so cruel and heartless a method as buying what she thought was a genuine engagement ring.

"She would have done No Such Agency proud – she didn't let on a thing." Sam explained, "Once she'd secured herself a higher-paying job in another State, she wreaked quiet havoc with the records before giving a searing exposé to the local newspaper on the day she left town."

"Go, girl." Dean approved.

"He was responsible for the council's finances so she shredded a little here, misfiled a little there, and so forth, and also set the computers up to highlight all those areas where he'd - "

Dean snorted, "let me guess, done a little creative accounting?"

"Bang on the nail."

"Not a great surprise. Like the Gospel says, a man faithful in what is least will be faithful in what is great, but a man faith_less_ in what is least is faithless in much."

"Scripture, from _you_?" Sam raised his eyebrows.

Dean shrugged, "Saint Luke wasn't writing anything other than basic common sense; a guy who can betray someone he's _publicly_ promised to love and cherish is probably going to be just as dishonourable and corrupt in other areas than sex as well – especially in _private_ when he thinks nobody's around to watch him slipping his fingers into the cash till."

Sam blinked but put aside for solitary meditation his surprise that Dean had not only been able to recite the biblical quote but even knew where in the Bible and by whom it had been written. Instead he related, "Right again - turned out that the guy had pulled the same M.O. before _twice_, with women who believed he was their fiancé until he spotted a younger, prettier target. He's now divorced, unemployed, flat broke after his previous victims sued him for psychological distress and under investigation by the IRS for tax fraud and embezzlement, which will take forever because for some reason the County Courthouse either doesn't have or can't find half its paperwork."

"Sounds like my kind of woman." Dean smiled. "So, I fill in the retroactive permits like an upstanding citizen trying to help out those beleaguered bastions of bureaucracy and from now on I don't break a sweat when a cop spots me with my Glock-17 tucked into the back of my waistband?"

"That's the tune." Sam gestured towards the laptop, where the screensaver was lazily spinning. "And now the website is up and running I'm going to design us a nicely officious ID with a big gold badge like a hog's head and a fancy coat-of-arms and Samuel J. Winchester Federal Investigator in _big_ letters…"

"…and 'paranormal and supernatural' in veeeh-ree _tiny_ print right at the bottom," surmised Dean.

"Yep. That way we can junk our glove box's unique card collection and whoever pulls us over can forensically swab down the trunk or glove box to their hearts content."

"But what it someone actually _reads_ it?" Dean pointed out.

It was Sam's turn to shrug carelessly. "What if they do? I looked up some stuff on eBay and Amazon, and people are selling relics and bits of stuff that are supposedly haunted, cursed or otherwise supernatural for hundreds of dollars on a daily basis. I mean, it's only the same reason that you can find 'Psychics' listed in the _phone book _for pity's sake - people will believe it's as real as they want it to be. As far as officialdom goes, we have a legit website, we pay our taxes and have no customer complaints, so as long as Uncle Sam gets his tax dollars out of us, who are they to object?"

_Continued in Chapter 13…_

© 2006, Catherine D. Stewart


	13. Chapter 13

**_Disclaimer etc, _**see Chapter 1

**NET KNOTS **

**Chapter 13**

Dean nodded, not begrudging his brother the point, which was well made. You could find psychics, clairvoyants and witches (for some reason only ever admitting to be 'white' ones) listed in the Yellow Book and of course the website was only a variation on the same theme.

But that still didn't mean he had to _like_ it. "Right, let me see." Dean nodded towards the laptop whose screen-saver was lazily spinning in perpetual mechanical patience until it was paid attention to.

Sam didn't object as Dean sat down in front of the screen and moved the mouse so the website screen came back up but his facial expression was that mixture of resignation and determination that Dean was familiar with, since it was Sam's typical _face du jour_ when he knew Dean was about to find fault with something…_well, yeah, like the whole website **idea**__in the first place, bro'_.

Dean blinked in surprised approval as the website's 'home page' came up. No sissy pastels or verbose tap-dancing around the subject – a very bright, completely unadorned daffodil yellow background showed briefly before large, unfussy black letters scrolled up vertically from the bottom and came to a halt in the middle of the page, declaring:

**BROTHERS IN ARMS**



**Demon Hunters**

**Supernatural Exterminators **

**Paranormal Pest Control**



**The Winchester Family Business**

**Over 25 years of experience**



**Dean T. Winchester**

**Samuel J. Winchester**

**John T. Winchester**

**& Associates**

Underneath the last line listing their father, two stylised images of Winchester Rifles had been placed in a 'X' position. The colour scheme was instantly reminiscent of a venomous insect – wasp, hornet or bee – that Dean highly doubted was unintentional. At the bottom of the page was a large button:

So Dean did.

_Continued in Chapter 14…_

© 2006, Catherine D. Stewart


	14. Chapter 14

**_Disclaimer etc, _**see Chapter 1

**NET KNOTS **

**Chapter 14**

Dean was expecting the second screen to go into whatever lure-the-punters sales pitch Sammy's pre-law university education had devised, but instead it was another wasp-like big black letters on bright yellow screen; a warning page, and one with all the subtlety of a half-brick tossed through a jeweller's window:

**IF YOU HAVE A PROBLEM**

**AND DON'T KNOW WHERE ELSE TO TURN**

**CLICK ON THE BUTTON BELOW**

**TO BE TAKEN TO OUR ENQUIRY FORM**

**NOTICE!**

**THE FEE **

**FOR COMPLETING THE ENQUIRY FORM**

**IS NON-REFUNDABLE**

**NO DISCOUNTS**

**NO EXCEPTIONS**

**NON NEGOTIABLE**

**PAY IN ADVANCE**

**THE FEE TO COMPLETE OUR ENQUIRY FORM:**

**$50.00 US**

**YOU MAY PAY USING**

**ANY MAJOR DEBIT OR CREDIT CARD**

**OR BY PAYPAL® OR E-Z-PAY®**

Dean turned to look at Sam incredulously. "_Fifty bucks_ for ticking a few boxes online? You've got to be kidding me!"

"Not in the slightest," parried Sam and sighed with annoying little-brother exasperation that Dean obviously didn't 'get it'. "I had to do_ something_ to filter out the time-wasters. If I'd left it, from the minute the website went 'live' every college frat-boy and socially maladjusted high-school hacker would be trying to snarl up the site with phoney enquiry forms and thinking it highly amusing to see how fast they could get the site to crash. Or don't you remember that pair of jokers that nearly got us both killed by Mordecai the Tulpa? Trust me, I _was_ a frat boy."

"And a socially maladjusted high-school hacker," Dean tagged on with a grin. "But fifty dollars…"

"That's for the others," Sam ticked them off on his fingers, "The right-wing religious fanatics trying to crash the site because we're obviously agents of Satan out to corrupt American Youth, the left-wing religious fanatics trying to 'make contact' and readjust our thinking to the right Politically Correct inclusiveness because we're not spiritually enlightened enough to understand that all a demon needs is a _hug_. The out-on-the-fringe streaming live from mom's basement wannabes thinking we're kindred nerds; the self-styled and self-appointed debunkers of all this 'mystical charlatanism' attempting to shut our 'obviously' crackpot and/or conmen asses down; whatever psycho-trist is looking to turn into a _New York Times_ bestseller - and him the next _Dr Phil_ - and whatever journalist with delusions of self-righteous crusading - "

"Whoa, whoa, okay, I'm on board! Yay to the fifty buck charge!" Dean raised a hand to stem the flow.

Sam wound out down. "Sorry, but you know what I mean. That collection of idiots would keep crashing the site and keep it so busy that those genuine cases which actually _needed_ our help would never be able to get through."

"Whereas having to fork out a not insignificant number of dead presidents makes the frat boys et cetera think once, twice and thrice about having fun at our expense. Good thinking, Sammy." Dean agreed, knowing not even the most determined troublemaker was likely to mess with the site more than once if their so-called 'fun' cost them $50 a pop.

"Sam," his brother corrected in what was becoming an automatic reflex. "Click on the next page."

_Continued in Chapter 15…_

© 2006, Catherine D. Stewart


	15. Chapter 15

**_Disclaimer etc, _**see Chapter 1

**NET KNOTS **

**Chapter 15**

The next page came up with the payment form for the fifty dollars. Sam came and leaned over, typing a code in the lines so Dean didn't have to 'pay' the fee, ignoring his brother's sarcastic "'Why, thank you so very much'" with the effortless ease of a lifetime's practice.

Dean watched incredulously as Sam typed in…"_Peanut M&Ms?_"

Huge smug grin across Sam's face as he mock-cooed, "What can I say, you're my inspiration."

Dean's eyes narrowed. "Watch it, Geek Boy, or I'm gonna lay some big brother smack-down on your ass."

If anything Sam's grin got bigger. "Dude, you haven't been my _big_ brother since I had that growth spurt at thirteen."

_Nice one, Sammy, but…_ "Sammy, Sammy, it's not size that matters, it's what you _do_ with it that counts!" Dean leered in a grotesque parody of licentiousness, "and you didn't have that growth spurt until you were _fifteen_."

_Gotcha…_Sam didn't try to hide his broad smirk as he shot back, "Dude, I wasn't talking about my _height_."

Dean scrunched up his face in an expression of disgust as he caught on to what anatomy Sam was referring to. "Ugh, ack!"

Sam laughed aloud, almost bouncing slightly on the bed with delight at having got one over on his elder brother.

Enjoying the brief levity, Dean turned back to where the page had skipped the payment and was on the personal information page. Equally as unfussy as the previous pages, this was a plain white page again with larger than normal black type, less threatening than the previous 'wasp yellow'. The page was pretty standard, 'Name, date of birth, occupation, nationality, ethnicity' and so forth.

Under 'title' it asked for any designation such as Reverend, Cardinal, Major, Professor; at the bottom it asked the enquirer YES or NO if they were a practising member of any religious belief system and if so, what.

Rapidly typing in the bare minimum of information, Dean clicked for the next screen, which consisted of different bold-headed sections and those little radio buttons you could click on to make a choice. Quickly he scanned the instructions and options:

**Please look at the choices below. Read each one carefully and then pick the one that most applies to your problem. Is your paranormal problem about:**

**PEOPLE (for Animals, see Next Section):**

**Yourself**

**Blood-related family member living in your household (e.g., son, sister)**

**Non-blood-related family member living in your household (e.g., wife)**

**Non-blood-related non-family household resident (e.g., lodger, servant)**

**Blood-relative not living in your household (e.g., child, sibling, cousin)**

**Non-blood-relative not living in your household (e.g., father-in-law)**

**Divorced/separated spouse or partner**

**Friend**

**Workmate or work colleague (not your superior)**

**Schoolmate or fellow pupil/college student attending same institution**

**Person of direct authority over you OR the person with the paranormal problem – e.g., schoolteacher, employer, supervisor, manager**

**Person of indirect authority over you OR the person with the paranormal problem – e.g., local sheriff, bank manager, Federal official**

**Neighbour (next-door)**

**Neighbour (next-door-but-one, across the street, etc)**

**Local citizen of your town**

**Other person, please specify:**

"Wow." Dean sat back.

"What?" Sam asked anxiously.

"I just…" Dean gestured towards the list, which was exactly the sort of detail he and Sam often needed yet struggled hard to get.

The sort of paranormal nasty the Winchesters might end up facing often varied enormously depending on the sex, age, race, religion and personal lifestyle of the individual being targeted.

Many supernatural entities 'went for' teenagers because adolescence made them much more prone to emotional distress. Likewise women, because women were more in tune with their emotions – _than, okay, I'll admit it, insensitive guys_ – whereas men tended to be more oblivious to the poltergeist in the corner trying to get their attention. Anyone going through a personal trauma, such as a divorce or bereavement, was also a prime candidate.

"Dean, it needs to be detailed –"

"I know, Sam, that's what I'm trying to say," Dean interjected with a lot more gentleness than he usually allowed himself to demonstrate. "I thought this website was something you'd knocked together in thirty minutes."

He didn't verbalise the _you've obviously put a lot of work and thought into it_ but the words hung in the air and Sam's cheeks flushed slightly with happiness at this approval.

_Continued in Chapter 16…_

© 2006, Catherine D. Stewart


	16. Chapter 16

**_Disclaimer etc, _**see Chapter 1

**NET KNOTS **

**Chapter 15**

Below the PEOPLE section was one for ANIMALS:

**ANIMALS (any non-human living creature):**

**Domestic mammal that is your pet – e.g., dog, cat, rabbit, hamster**

**Domestic mammal that is the pet of someone in your household**

**Domestic mammal that is livestock, e.g., horse, cow, sheep, pig**

**Non-domestic mammal – deer, wolf, bear, cougar, lynx, bats**

**Domestic bird – e.g., chicken, budgerigar, parrot**

**Non-domestic bird – e.g., eagle, sparrow, etc**

**Non-domestic rodents – e.g., mice, rats (NOT kept as pets)**

**Domestic reptile or amphibian that is a PET – e.g., snake, frog**

**Non-domestic reptiles or amphibians – e.g., snakes, toads etc**

**Insects of any type, whether kept as PET or not**

**Any other non-human living creature**

The one for buildings was more extensive and detailed in instruction:

**BUILDINGS:**

**Note: if the affected is mobile, e.g., a trailer or car, please see the next Section. **

**Is the building in question currently being used for the purpose it was constructed for:**

 **YES ** **NO ** **BUILDING IS DISUSED/ABANDONED BUT AS BUILT**

**This can be an important factor in the likelihood of a problem being paranormal or physical, for example, a church deconsecrated and turned into apartments, or a former hospital being turned into retail outlets, etc. If the property is derelict or disused but has not been structurally altered, such as a decommissioned Army base or a historic site such as the Alamo, please choose the third radio button in stead of YES or NO. Please choose the appropriate building from the list: **

**A house (single, two/three-storey, duplex, cottage, etc)**

**An apartment block**

**An outbuilding on the property – barn, shed, glasshouse, stable**

**A hotel, motel or guest-house that is your residence/as your home**

**A hotel, motel or guest-house where you are a guest**

**A vacation cabin, hunting lodge, pool-house etc**

**An office building**

**Any Federal Building (e.g., FBI, Dept of Weights & Measures)**

**Any military installation or area thereof (e.g., Coronado Naval Base) **

**A factory**

**A warehouse **

**A hospital (of any type, medical, psychiatric or Veterans Hospital)**

**A prison (of any security grade)**

**A drug rehabilitation clinic or alcohol addiction treatment centre**

**A religious retreat, centre or non-church site, e.g., monastery, madrassa**

**Party political office/lobbyist's office**

**A retail outlet/store or restaurant, etc.**

**A casino, movie theatre, nightclub, theatre, concert hall, bar, etc**

**Soup kitchen**

**Homeless Shelter**

**A deconsecrated place of worship now used for another purpose, e.g., church converted into apartments**

**A current, consecrated and in-use place of worship of any religion**

**Any other non-mobile building construction place, e.g., plane hanger, airfield, military storage depot, junkyard, pier, etc **

**OBJECTS:**

**For mobile objects that be used as transport or homes, e.g., car, see the Next Section.**

**A portable, non-electrical object, such as a vase, book, table, chair**

**A portable, electrical object, such as a TV, microwave or PC**

**A non-portable, non-electrical object, such as a bed, closet**

**A non-portable, electrical object, such as a large refrigerator **

**An item of clothing including underwear, hats, gloves, purses, billfolds**

**A piece of jewellery**

**A painting/drawing, tapestry or textile work, photograph etc**

**A non-projectile weapon, such as a dagger, sword**

**A projectile weapon, such as a firearm, bow and arrow, catapult**

**Any other object NOT a trailer, car, etc.**

The final section was the shortest:

**TRANSPORT or MOBILE VEHICLES/OBJECTS**

**Trailer home**

**Motor home**

**Car**

**Motorcycle/side-car**

**Bicycle (including unicycle, tandem bicycle)**

**Boat of any type – yacht, houseboat, etc.**

**Tent**

**Other**

_Tent?_ Dean conceded the point…if a human lived in it on a permanent or regular basis it could be targeted by something paranormal and pissed.

_Continued in Chapter 17…_

© 2006, Catherine D. Stewart


	17. Chapter 17

**_Disclaimer etc, _**see Chapter 1

**NET KNOTS **

**Chapter 17**

At random, Dean clicked YES for 'still in original use' and then the first radio button for 'house' under BUILDINGS.

Immediately the screen 'dissolved' into a new page that asked a series of questions with a long horizontal text box underneath for answers. Again, they were the questions that Dean and Sam usually tried to find out as soon as they could, such as _How long have you lived in the house? How old is the house? Do you know the history of the house? Can you list previous owners/occupants? Has anyone ever died in the house? What is the house constructed of, i.e., wood, stone, adobe, etc?_ And so on.

Again, just like people, they gave the hunters vital information. An old house was much more likely to attract an entity because of something that had happened to a person who lived there, such as the demolition of Cyrus Dorian's ancestral home disturbing the murderously racist SOB. A newly built property that experienced problems was much more likely to be because of the location or an external factor – Oasis Plains, please step forward. There were, of course, exceptions to these rules, like a nice house in Lawrence, Kansas, that had only been built in 1977 but which had had sufficient disturbances for a centuries old mansion.

Problems could also be caused if, for instance, a church or temple had not been properly deconsecrated before being turned into some other building and offence was caused to the God who had been worshipped there. Occasionally what the house was made of was also a problem. During Sam's four-year Stanford absence Dean and their Dad had nearly been stumped by a property developer's plight because only some of the houses he had built were affected whereas others weren't and they had quickly established the project had not been built on holy Indian land, or disturbed a battlefield or the like.

Finally John Winchester realised that the affected houses had all been built using stones 'reclaimed' from a disused Quaker Meeting House that it turned out hadn't been disused at all. The developer's sub-contractor had not bothered to travel the seventy miles to the right Meeting House but instead had arranged to 'accidentally' crash a dumper truck into one only two miles down the road so it was so structurally unsafe it would have to be taken down.

He had made a nice little profit on money saved in gas and transporting the stone back to the site, but he had been considerably less arrogant when the judge sentenced his ass to jail.

The developer had been an excellent client, unhesitatingly giving John a fat cheque, but his unforgiving attitude had been understandable. John had regretfully had to explain that there was no way to determine the source of individual stones, meaning every single one of the nine affected houses would have to be torn down and rebuilt again entirely from scratch – in short, it was equivalent to the developer building eighteen brand new houses then just giving nine of them away free like a McDonald's Meal Deal Toy.

_Continued in Chapter 18…_

© 2006, Catherine D. Stewart


	18. Chapter 18

**_Disclaimer etc, _**see Chapter 1

**NET KNOTS **

**Chapter 18**

Again completing the basics (that he made up as he went along), Dean clicked for the next page and a large banner came up on the screen:

**IF YOUR HOUSE IS NOT A NEW CONSTRUCTION built within the last five years, HAS YOUR HOUSE/PROPERTY BEEN GIVEN A STRUCTURAL SURVEY WITHIN THE LAST FIVE YEARS FROM TODAY'S DATE?**

**YES**

**NO**

Dean chose NO and the page gave a loud 'ping' dissolving into the familiar yellow screen with those large black 'pay attention' letters.

**YOUR ENQUIRY HAS BEEN SUSPENDED AT THIS POINT**

**YOUR ENQUIRY HAS BEEN SAVED TO OUR SYSTEM**

**YOU HAVE NOT BEEN CHARGED ANY MONEY AT THIS POINT**

**PLEASE HAVE A STRUCTURAL SURVEY DONE ON YOUR PROPERTY. YOU SHOULD CHECK FOR:**

**Subsidence (e.g., caused by old mine-workings, underground streams)**

**Dry rot**

**Rising Damp**

**Mildew/spores**

**Termite infestation**

**Ant infestation**

**Insect infestation, (e.g., wasp's nest in the attic)**

**Vermin infestation (e.g., rodents, snakes, bats or pigeons nesting)**

**Old wiring**

**Old plumbing**

**Water damage/seepage, leaking or collapsed pipes**

**Warped and/or rotted wooden joists, window sills, door jambs, etc**

**Many things you experience such as flickering lights and scratching behind walls are indicators of malevolent supernatural attack, however, much as we are happy to take your money, it would be unethical of us not to point out that these are also indicators of mice nibbling through your house wiring etc. If your structural survey reveals widespread rising damp, you need a builder, not a demon hunter. **

**PLEASE CLICK ON THE "SAVE" BUTTON BELOW AND MAKE A NOTE OF THE REFERENCE NUMBER YOU ARE GIVEN.**

**IF, ONCE YOU HAVE HAD THE SURVEY DONE, YOUR PROBLEM PERSISTS AND IS NOT APPARENTLY PHYSICAL IN NATURE RETURN TO THE HOME PAGE AND TYPE IN YOUR REFERENCE NUMBER. YOU WILL BE DIRECTED TO THE BANNER QUESTION AND YOU SHOULD CHOOSE 'YES'.**

**WARNING!**

**IF, AFTER RECEIVING YOUR ENQUIRY FORM WE DECIDE TO AGREE TO HOLD A CONSULTATION MEETING WITH YOU ABOUT YOUR PROBLEM, THE CHARGE IS $250 U.S.**

**WE DO NOT HOLD MORE THAN ONE CONSULTATION MEETING PER INDIVIDUAL CASE**

**THIS IS A FLAT-RATE FEE APPLICABLE THROUGHOUT THE CONTINTENTAL UNITED STATES**

**NON-REFUNDABLE**

**NON-NEGOTIABLE**

**NO DISCOUNTS**

**NO EXCEPTIONS**

**TO BE PAID IN FULL IN ADVANCE BY DEBIT OR CREDIT CARD ONLY**

**YOU MUST BRING WITH YOU ALL INSTRUCTED DOCUMENTS, INCLUDING THE COMPLETED STRUCTURAL SURVEY FOR YOUR PROPERTY. **

**IF YOU ATTEND THE CONSULTATION MEETING WITHOUT THE STRUCTURAL SURVEY, THE CONSULTATION MEETING WILL BE DEEMED VOID AND TERMINATED AND WE WILL RETAIN IN FULL THE $250 FEE. **

**IF WE AGREE A DATE TO CONSULT WITH YOU AND DURING THE INTERIM YOU LEARN NEW INFORMATION THAT NEGATES THE POSSIBILITY OF PARANORMAL OR SUPERNATURAL ACTIVITY, YOU MUST INFORM US IMMEDIATELY. **

**IN THIS INSTANCE WE RETAIN $100 EXPENSES AND ADMINISTRATION FEE AND WILL REFUND YOU $150.**

**IF YOU FAIL TO ATTEND A CONSULTATION MEETING AT THE AGREED TIME AND DATE WE WILL RETAIN $100 EXPENSES AND ADMINISTRATION FEE AND WILL REFUND YOU $150. **

**IT IS UP TO YOU TO RE-CONTACT US TO REARRANGE THIS CONSULTATION, AND WE ARE UNDER NO OBLIGATION TO AGREE TO THIS. **

Dean was aware of Sam watching him carefully and he knew why. Could Cassie Robinson or poor Deputy Sheriff Haduk have afforded to just shell out $250?

But he also knew why Sam had done it. Fifty dollars would work on a bored frat boy or college jock, but it wouldn't deter the seriously stupid or hardcore pests fuelled by misguided sanctimony who could afford the sum or more likely charge part or all of it to their organisation's expense account.

But Sam still had that look of constipated anxiety that warned Dean something he wasn't going to like was still lurking with a brickbat. Then he spotted the words right at the bottom of the screen:

**NOTICE! IMPORTANT! PLEASE READ BELOW VERY CAREFULLY!**

_Continued in Chapter 19…_

© 2006, Catherine D. Stewart


	19. Chapter 19

**_Disclaimer etc, _**see Chapter 1

**NET KNOTS **

**Chapter 19**

Underneath were the words READ ME. Dean clicked on them and a large pop-up box displayed that had bold-type paragraphs at the top:

**If we agree to consult with you, this does not impose any obligation upon us to accept your case. We may decline to accept your case without consultation, during the consultation meeting or afterwards without providing any reason. **

**If we do accept your case, we charge a flat-rate fee for our services depending upon the nature of your problem. This fee is designed to include gas, food, accommodation and minor ER/hospital expenses, and so you will not be charged extra for these. The fee listed is per individual supernatural entity, not type of entity. If your house is afflicted by two poltergeists or a poltergeist and a goblin, you will be charged the full fee for each poltergeist or the full fee for the poltergeist and the goblin. **

**! THE FEE MUST BE PAID IN FULL, IN ADVANCE AND IN CASH ONLY.**

**! THIS PAYMENT SHALL BE CONSIDERED OUR CONTRACT TO TAKE YOUR CASE.**

**! WE DO NOT ACCEPT DEBIT CARD, CREDIT CARD, CHEQUE OR ANY OTHER METHOD OF PAYMENT. **

**! PLEASE ENSURE THAT YOU CAN PAY THIS MONEY IN FULL BEFORE COMPLETING AND SUBMITTING THE ENQUIRY FORM TO US (YOU HAVE NOT YET BEEN CHARGED THE $50 ENQUIRY FEE). **

**! IF WE ACCEPT YOUR ENQUIRY AND HOLD A CONSULTATION MEETING WE WILL RETAIN THE $250 CONSULTATION FEE IF WE ACCEPT YOUR CASE BUT YOU CANNOT PAY THE EXTERMINATION FEE. **

**PLEASE CAREFULLY CHECK THE LIST OF FEES BELOW AND ENSURE YOU CAN PAY THESE. REMEMBER – MULTIPLE ENTITIES WILL BE CHARGED ON AN INDIVIDUAL BASIS PER ENTITY. THERE ARE NO DISCOUNTS, TWO-FOR-ONE, ETC., BECAUSE THIS IS NOT A GAME!**

Below the stark list was one of those scroll up-and-down boxes and Dean automatically began to read as it was in order of fee lowest to highest rather than alphabetical by description:

Sprite (Non-winged)$100 each

Sprite (Winged)$120 each

Gargoyle (Wooden, Non-winged)$100 each

Gargoyle (Wooden, winged)$130 each

Gargoyle (Stone, Non-winged)$150 each

Gargoyle (Stone, Winged)$200 each

Golem$200 each

And so the list went on with the prices rising to thousands of dollars by the time it got to werewolves, vampires, manticores…

"No!" declared Dean furiously, slapping his hand down on the table and twisting in his chair to glare furiously at his brother.

"Dean…"

"Do _not_ play me!" barked Dean in rage. "We're supposed to help people, Sam, not milk them like a cash cow! People can't afford –"

"Desperate people can afford anything!" Sam shot back and stood up, blowing a breath to calm down.

He'd known Dean was going to be upset by the price list, which actually made his heart twist with affection for his swaggering, mushy-hearted brother. Sam knew Dean was a better man than himself _and_ their father. John and Sam were both in the hunt for personal vengeance, and both, even though John would never say so, secretly harboured a fantasy of hanging up their guns once the Yellow-Eyed Peril was dead.

But Dean was different. He hunted, and would continue to do so, for the most simple yet profound of reasons – just because it was the right thing to do; to help innocent people, and protect defenceless people from the things out there in the dark. Many people would point the finger at Dean's financial frauds and his lax morals and accuse, but Dean did have strong ethical principles. He was genuinely outraged and viewed as utterly immoral 'taking advantage' of desperate, frightened people who needed help nobody else could provide.

Right now Dean sat not a foot away with refusal and rejection oozing from every pore.

"Do you remember the Wilmington poltergeists?"

_Continued in Chapter 20…_

© 2006, Catherine D. Stewart


	20. Chapter 20

**_Disclaimer etc, _**see Chapter 1

**NET KNOTS **

**Chapter 20**

Dean gave a curt nod. Sam had been sixteen; only eighteen months later he would abandon brother and father for Stanford. Their dad had noticed an odd pattern in Wilmington, Tennessee, as the three of them had been passing through and it transpired two unconnected families in the same town had separate poltergeist problems.

"Remember how they treated us – Hoskins and the McNairs?" Sam persisted.

Again Dean nodded but did not trust himself to speak. Royston Hoskins and his trophy wife were local political bigwigs and 'something' in the City, living on an 'estate' in some marble pile with a dozen bathrooms. Their response to watching the Winchester trio get banged up despatching a nasty entity was to practically shove their saviours out the door and slam it in their faces without so much as a word of gratitude.

The McNairs were blue-collar minimum-wage factory workers who like most working-class Americans couldn't afford any medical insurance and so lived a precarious existence in the knowledge if they got sick they would either get better or die. Their response to the removal of their terror was effusive thanks and an insistence on hugging all three men. Though Sam had been perpetually at war with John since he'd hit thirteen and was already deeply involved with earning a full-ride scholarship to Stanford, he had at that time felt deeply for his father as John had tried and failed to find some pretext to refuse the $80 that the McNairs – God only knew how – had somehow managed to scrape together and press upon the Winchesters as they were leaving. For once Sam had made no objection when John spent the entire $80 on gas and upgrading/re-supplying weaponry, aware and agreeing that the money should not be used on frivolities like junk food or motel rooms.

"Dean," Sam looked his brother straight in the eye. "I swear, the price list is just another way to deter the hardcore idiots. The 'Hoskins' we end up taking cases for will pay full whack. The 'McNairs'…will discover that the werewolf costing them $2,000 was really just a rabid dog and therefore we're only charging them $100 for gas."

"You promise." Dean made it a non-negotiable demand, not a question.

"I promise. Come on Dean, after what I've seen and done over this last year, I understand why we do what we do. I'm not out to fleece desperate, scared people of money they can't afford." Sam put a bit of affront into his tone.

"Okay," Dean relaxed slightly – he wouldn't tolerate defenceless people being left at the mercy of a wendigou or a shape-shifter because they couldn't afford to pay for relief. That sort of mercenary money-hunger was most of what was wrong with this country, where doctors had no qualm of conscience over sending an eight-year-old home to die of a brain tumour for no better 'reason' than his father couldn't afford to pay for the surgery to save him. Dean wasn't about to turn into some avaricious supernatural equivalent of those disgraceful doctors because a terrified family didn't have the cash to get rid of a vampire nest or a werewolf pack.

Satisfied, for now at any rate, Dean obeyed the original instructions to click SAVE and a number prefixed with an 'A' appeared. Remembering it, he exited the website and then went back in to the home page. On the second page, at the bottom of the screen was the small text box he had noticed earlier, with **Reference Number:** helpfully typed next to it.

Entering the number he'd just been given, Dean tapped the ENTER key and the screen promptly took him straight to the building prompt screen and the Structural Survey question, at which point he changed the radio button from NO to YES and pressed ENTER again.

A new screen came up:

**IN ORDER FOR YOUR ENQUIRY FORM TO BE SUCCESSFULLY SUBMITTED, PLEASE TYPE YOUR FULL HOME ADDRESS, CELL PHONE NUMBER AND EMAIL ADDRESS BELOW. **

**REMEMBER, ONCE YOU PRESS THE 'SUBMIT' BUTTON, YOU WILL BE CHARGED $50. IF YOU HAVE CHANGED YOUR MIND AND DO NOT WISH TO PROCEED, PRESS EXIT NOW. **

Carefully Dean entered the address of their old house in Lawrence, his own cell phone number and Sam's email address, then clicked the SUBMIT button firmly. Almost immediately there was a beep from his cell phone and a ping from the laptop's inbuilt speakers with the little envelope to denote incoming mail. Flipping open his cell phone, he saw a text message and read: YOU HAVE RECEIVED ENQUIRY FROM BiA WEBSITE. CHECK YOUR EMAIL.

Closing his phone and bringing up his email inbox, Dean opened the email from himself and found it showed his address and contact details and included the enquiry form he had just completed. "So we get an alert should an enquiry form ever come in?"

"That's the idea," Sam breathed a silent sigh of relief now the 'danger' had been smoothed over. "We check out the form and if we think it's something we need to look into we check out where they live and email-stroke-text them back with a meeting date and time somewhere locally convenient."

Dean frowned at his wording. "'Locally convenient'? We're not going directly to them?"

"That was my original plan," Sam admitted, "Right until I remembered the Benders and dear old Hibbing, Minnesota. We need to have the Consultation Meeting somewhere with plenty of people and preferably in solid daylight – a public park, a café or diner, a library or a church or something."

Dean nodded, "Yeah, I get it. Set up a meeting at someone's home and we could end up at some creepy Bender Mark II freak show in the middle of nowhere, or the place could turn out to be a demon trap. Nobody would miss us for weeks if not months."

He didn't need to remind Sam that the Benders for all their evil insanity had been cunning enough to scope out targets who were either strangers in the area, had no spouse or immediately family, or who were likely to be presumed as 'left of their own accord'. Deputy Kathleen Haduk's younger brother for instance had been widely presumed to have just gone road-tripping to try racing that hot-rod car of his – even though his sister had been a _sheriff_ for crying out loud, his disappearance hadn't been accepted as non-voluntary until many months after it was way, way too late.

"Or a vampire nest," Sam put in grimly, "Or werewolf den or any one of a dozen other entities that would see luring us into a trap as a very good thing – and that's just the supernatural stuff. Some do-gooder on a mission lures us to a house that turns out to be a 'cult deprogramming centre' or we walk in to find a barrage of reporters or wall to wall cops or something."

_Continued in Chapter 21_

© 2006, Catherine D. Stewart


	21. Chapter 21

**_Disclaimer etc, _**see Chapter 1

**NET KNOTS **

**Chapter 21**

For a moment both brothers were silent as they contemplated all the ways that agreeing to blindly visit a stranger's home would be a very, very bad idea.

Finally Sam rolled his shoulders. "Anyway, it's probably all academic. I've only created the website to give us a source of legitimate income if we need it. I doubt it's going to generate more than a bit of gas money every month. I just wanted you to be aware of because the Internet Service Provider policy meant it went live at midnight."

"Works for me," Dean suddenly found himself yawning mightily. "And rest assured your King of the Nerds crown is safe, Sammy."

"Ha, ha –"

_Beep, ping…beep, ping_.

They both froze and looked at each other with wide eyes. Pulling his cell phone from his pocket, Dean found two messages identical to the one he'd just sent himself.

Leaning forward with an expression of fascination, Sam brought up the inbox Dean had minimised preparatory to shutting down the laptop and there were two email enquiry forms waiting to be read.

Dean blinked in that lazy way that meant his brain was actually whirling. "Dude…have we just made a hundred bucks in…ten seconds?"

"I think…" Sam admitted and clicked open the first email, which was from, would you believe it, a quarter horse stud-ranch owner in Kentucky.

His horses were being attacked at night by 'unidentifiable' winged pests the size of a small eagle. He'd had two mares miscarry, a foal had to be shot with a broken leg when it bolted in terror and three prize stud stallions were not doing their stud bit due to severe equine 'performance anxiety'. Attempts to shoot the nocturnal pests had proven futile as incredibly they seemed impervious to a 12-gauge, and all the ranch hands had found after such attempts were a few mysterious stone-chips in the grass which appeared to be granite.

The ranch owner had taken one look at 'Gargoyles, Stone, Winged' and knew what he was dealing with. He 'estimated' there were about half-a-dozen gargoyles terrorising his stock, and on top of the $50 enquiry fee, $250 consult fee and $200-per-gargoyle fee he would pay first-class airfare tickets for all 'three' Winchester men if they would get to Kentucky within the next 36 hours, as well as…

Dean shook his head as if to clear it. "Sammy, just read that last bit to me, wudya?"

Not believing his own eyes either, Sam nevertheless almost whispered, "As well as one thousand dollars cash on arrival, _gratis_."

"One thousand…two hundred per gargoyle…six gargoyles…" Dean muttered, "That's…$2,500!"

"And we haven't even checked the second email yet!" Sam gulped.

_Beep, ping_…

THE END

© 2006, Catherine D. Stewart

**Author's Note:**

This story was actually my first ever in the fandom, though only posted now. I got the niggle in the 'credit card fraud' from the pilot but it really started to develop from Episode #4 of Season 1, _Skin_, basically because of my irritation that 'Dean dead in St Louis' was never "fixed" in a subsequent episode (even if just a throwaway line to the effect of Sammy hacking into the police files and adding some narrative.)

Without wishing to annoy McG, Eric & the scriptwriters (it's bad for your blood pressure, boys) that simply isn't plausible or believable. Leaving aside the dubious morality of presenting fraud, deception and dishonesty as 'cool', it is simply not practical. Plastic, whether real or fake, leaves a trail. If you really need to go Greta Garbo and just leave for a while, hoard those banknotes, because cash truly is invisible – tracking cash is the financial equivalent of trying to plait fog.

My other issue is that, unlike just a few years ago, nowadays (and particularly in the USA after 9/11) everyone's connected – and paranoid. We even saw an example in _The Benders_ when a rural, presumably budget-poor _deputy _sheriff still had an in-car wireless broadband computer than blew Dean's phoney credentials apart in ten seconds flat. That doesn't take into account the myriad hospitals (even charity hospitals and clinics) across the USA who often use the same medical labs to test tissue samples and whose computer records can be compared with a few keystrokes.

That's when this story began to get going – the technology is getting better, authorities are getting smarter, banks are getting meaner with fraudsters. All The demon needed to do was tip off the appropriate authorities and then watch Dean, Sam and John hang themselves. Then, like 'Sam' I thought about the traffic police problem. You can't tell me a young, handsome guy like Dean driving a classy car he may not have looked able to afford wouldn't have attracted some officious state trooper? The instant that worthy insisted on a trunk check or to examine the inside of the car, it would be sayonara boys.

Finally, it occurred to me how vulnerable they always are – like in the pilot where the sheriff finds their 'mumbo jumbo' in a motel room. All it needs is a particularly smart, suspicious and astute person to look at the brothers and head for the nearest police officer. A brilliant example is the 'Beth' character in _Chicks and Private Dicks_, Chapter 2 of Degonda's Supernatural story _Clowns and Helium_.

Read the chapter and you'll see instantly what I mean – she nearly manages to get Sam arrested when he asks her questions pretending to be an FBI agent and she clocks all the info he has on dead children and starts yelling for the cops. What's more Sam and Dean have to stick around in Degonda's story to find out how and why the clowns are killing the children, so what do you think the reaction would be of Beth – or say a more law enforcement type character – to seeing these guys hanging around seeming to ogle children every day? Pretty soon they'd be in the frame for every unsolved murder back to Jack the Ripper.

Any story should be believable within its genre, like _Buffy_ was, or the Stargate SG-1 episode _Wormhole Xtreme_ where the SGC knew they had a perfect cover of 'plausible deniability' if they wanted it because Stargate _could_ plausibly be real life not just reel life. Take the example of _Something Wicked_…America is by and large a very family oriented society, with close-knit families and strong community attitudes. Yet in that episode, where children were mysteriously ill and dying nobody, but nobody, comes over for a little Q&A with the two definitely-not-GQ strangers who have spent a good ten minutes eyeballing a children's playground? I don't think so.

The boys also spend a lot of time in diners and cafés, where Dean has the journal or a newspaper and Sam has the laptop open and firing. All it would need for disaster would be a doctor (e.g., Gregory House) or an off duty sheriff in civilian clothing or a vacationing FBI/ATF/DEA/ Homeland Security agent sat at the next table think Max Bhagat/Jules Cassidy or Jimmy Nash/Sam Starratt from Suzanne Brockmann's _Troubleshooter _series who overheard a few words or caught a glimpse of Sam's laptop to start eavesdropping in earnest. After about two minutes the eavesdropper would probably be convinced the pair were psychopathic drifters serial-killing their way across the U.S. Indeed, all you'd really need was an observant librarian, county courthouse clerk or just conscientious citizen concerned over two rather casually dressed young drifters showing a suspicious amount of interest in children, or local women murder victims or whatever.

That's not counting all the other stuff that could go wrong. What if Sam and Dean go on a hunt from a dingy motel complex for a few days only for the fire alarm to get pulled? The staff and/or firemen decide to do a room-by-room check and they open the door to freak-o-rama? Or maybe the ATF/DEA raid the place looking for drugs or guns, or NCIS raid looking for an AWOL sailor? They round up the staff and guests then do a room by room search to see what they turn up and it's _hello, freak-out time_. Or if the pair pull into a hotel that, though they don't know it, is under surveillance by the FBI anti-terrorism unit. A few telescopic camera shots of Dean and Sam hauling blessed/cursed ritual daggers, silver bullets, wood crosses with 'Mr Pointy' ends and Holy Water out of the trunk would soon redirect attention.

And finally there is fingerprints and DNA samples. In more episodes than I count, the boys have left their fingerprints and dandruff. Remember them wiping down the railings in _Nightmare_? How many times must they have inadvertently left a thumbprint on something?

What really brought these fragmented realisations together though, and turned this story coherent, was the death of my granddad. Unlike the death of my other granddad, which was totally unexpected from a massive heart attack at work, we knew my granddad would not make it, though he rallied a couple of times. We were prepared, and had already gathered the appropriate paperwork and were ready to inform officialdom, which was done for all interested parties within two hours of my granddad passing away. Now, four months later, we are still mired in bureaucratic incompetence, ineptitude, inefficiency, indifference and ignorance. It is indeed terrifying to contemplate the absolute and utter mess they would have made of the situation had my granddad Chic's death been as unexpected as my granddad Dick's. One thing we have learned is that you are on databases you didn't know about or think you were on in a million years, even if most of what is recorded is so hopelessly wrong that a three-year-old could spot the gaffe. Sam and Dean would, in 'real life' be likewise enmeshed in this idiocy and doubtless the situation would deteriorate from there.

Supernatural is a great show and obviously they only have 40 minutes to tell a story, so a lot of underpinning detail has to be jettisoned for more important things. That means certain things have to be cut and left to the viewers imaginations. We never see Dean/Sam working out at the gym or sparring because there isn't time, but we know they have to have a daily workout routine to be as fast and resilient as they are (as well as so Jensen and Jared look any good without wearing shirts!).

Obviously 'credit card fraud' was dreamt up as a quick fix, but if you really want to stay below the radar, card fraud lays a false trail, but cash leaves no trail at all. And since you _can_ find psychics in the phone book, why not Winchester Paranormal Exterminators? In what I like to think of as great minds but is certainly nothing more than sheer coincidence, Eric Kripke has confirmed that one of the episodes in Season 2 actually covers all the points I've made in this story/note – apparently the brothers don't manage to depart one step ahead of the authorities/law enforcement types like they normally do. I'll be watching that episode eagerly!


End file.
